[T]here is an even more basic point: Our legal and social orders disproportionately benefit the well-off. That makes it reasonable for them to pick up a larger share of the social costs. Both the police and the courts safeguard their holdings. Our system is designed to protect and preserve the current distribution of property and wealth.

Amen, brother. Capitalists love to crow about how their inventiveness and moxie was the formula to success, but without our stable society, how far could they go? Look at it this way: How many powerhouse businesses flourish in nations with weak governments? Think of the G7, and you're looking at liberal democracies, right down the line.

Anti-tax partisans like to moan about how taxes destroy the incentive to start businesses and engage in commerce, yadda yadda yadda. Yet the United States, even with its supposedly oppressive taxes, has created the largest economy in the world--and Japan, no tax haven, is number two.

Make no mistake about it: with conservatives, it isn't so much the taxes, as where they go. They have long ago lost the argument about the popularity of many government programs, so they do their best to see them de-funded (which is why Bush's deficit spree represents bonanzas for corporate welfare and little for social programs). It's an effective tactic, but not one that really stands up to scrutiny.